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“Things are changing fast in Alaska and our own complex situation changes too. Life on a sailboat is often not easy and the influences of the real world create social and family pressures that are sometimes difficult to ignore. There’s always an intrinsic reason to move on…”

Together we decided to leave Alaska to slowly make our way home. Our upcoming blogs and latest news will reflect our feelings that we must perhaps face things as they really are.

In July the three of us, Marie, Henry and myself left Hoonah for the last time to sail south. We left behind exceptionally good friends we’d made during our three years there, it was a heartbreaking decision but one we deliberated knowing it was time to move on. Partly this was because of the changes in Alaska in the face of relentless growth in huge monster-sized cruise ships that often brings tacky tourism and also because of our ongoing engine issues that finally put paid to our plans to attempt a transit of the Northwest Passage… and after listening to lots of advise it was clear that we must head south to get things fixed once and for all. It’s notoriously difficult to fix an English sailboat in Alaska.

A new adventure beginning! How many times has this happened now? Perhaps this is a true reflection of the vagrant lifestyle we lead. In November before Christmas we arrived in Mexico, a two thousand miles hazardous sail that took us into many new harbours – places where we made new friends, good friends who took care of us and welcomed us into their own environments.

Between Port Townsend and San Fransisco we were battered relentlessly by a vicious storm, a bastard Pacific maelstrom that nearly saw the end of us – the US Coast Guard stood by to rescue us but with our brand new Yanmar engine fitted in Port Townsend spluttering and threatening to die completely, we sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fransisco to hug and kiss each other in a thankful way that few couples ever get to experience.

It’s difficult to put into words the spiritual existence that develops between you when you fight together to survive.

Why we decided to leave… it’s never easy to leave friends you’re gonna remember for the rest of your life. But another new adventure… we left Hoonah because of the relentless march of the giant cruise ships that are changing Alaska…

Yet another grizzly bear encounter… Henry must surely be the only schoolboy of his age at Carlton-Le-Willows who’s now experienced three close encounters out in the wild… and he never tells his friends!